A Mid-Production’s Quiet Leave

The venue Mysterium lived up to its name. Even in finding it on the dark streets of Orange was a conundrum. And once Theodore and I entered the Tarot and palm reading, Wicca and Reiki retail shop, I wish we had never found it. The people at the front were nice enough, and upon walking past the various spiritual healing books, past the Tarot reading rooms and then into the theater, I discovered the reason for their joy at our arrival. The theater, which was more of a back room, sat about 30 or 40 people and it was half-filled that Friday night. The audience members’ faces looked strained, confused, and unintentionally judgmental. They were watching the opening act: Puck, a gothic, Asian young man doing card tricks and jokes in a horrible British accent. And when people did not laugh, he actually said, “No? Not funny? Okay, maybe this one.” The best word I can use to describe it is “creepy”. And the creepiness continued throughout the mutilated rendition of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The four Athenian lovers were dressed like those generic models on Target posters during August, advertising the latest white and navy back-to-school ensembles. Demetrius had a cast on his foot and a single crutch. He clacked around the stage while being chased by a very tall Helena. Peter Quince and his troop were not all male and were dressed as plumbers and construction workers and other blue-collar professionals. Thesseus and Hippolyta were dressed as a conventional king and queen, as normally as Mysterium’s budget could bear. And besides Puck’s gothic outfit, Oberon’s cheesy warrior outfit, and Titania’s rather revealing outfit, the fairies’ costumes were just the way you’d think a fairy might look, with just enough mysticism and imagination. This mixture of modern and traditional costumes was confusing. It did not add to the play at all and only enhanced the fact that this was a wobbly production. Luckily, it did its part to momentarily distract me from the across-the-board, poor and embarrassing performances, besides of that one 10-year-old girl who played that one fairy in those four scenes.

However unkind the acting was to my cheeks from my uncomfortable cringe, the only positive thing I can recall from the play was in the all of the actors’ performances: energy. Energy was in no way lacking from the stage. In fact, I think they stole my energy, because I walked away quite drained. Both Helena and Hermia were perfect examples of the enthusiasm, to which apparently the director made the cast pledge some sort of cult allegiance. Or maybe it was all of that Reiki they do. (Reiki, I found upon polite and deliberately nonjudgmental inquisition, is a Japanese, stress-reducer practice that moves healing energy through mental and physical massage.) Helena was out of breath as she ran after Demetrius, speaking her lines as quickly as she could. I appreciated Puck’s nimbleness as he jumped on the slide, stumbled on the swing, and hopped lightly after Oberon. But it was also very contrived. Everything Puck did was contrived.

Titania’s energy was a different kind. As if her odd, strips-of-lace costume was not racy enough, she had to act as if she just drank her third Irish Car Bomb the whole time she was on stage. She arched her back in weird ways, lifted her arms with wrists left limp and revealed more of her leg than I wanted Theodore to see. She said her lines as if she was approaching a hiccough and she made unprecedented eye contact with Oberon, Bottom, and me at one point. If she wanted her performance to be remembered, she succeeded.

The characters I did not mind coming onstage were the misfits practicing their play. These were the scenes I enjoyed most while reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so it is only logical for me to enjoy watching them. Yet, more than that, I think I enjoyed watching the crew in play rehearsal because I was pretending, and hoping, they were rehearsing to actually better their upcoming actual performances. For example, perhaps when Bottom, a big, annoying, clumsy boy, practiced Pyramus, he was unconsciously practicing Bottom. Rehearsal is where all the actors needed to be. I appreciated their energy; but I’m pretty sure they forgot that other actors were on stage. There were no connections.

Unfortunately, I have little material left to thrash. Theodore kept glancing at me during the first half and we would meet eyes and nod our knowing faces: intermission was our only hope. We were sitting next to another student from class and his friend and they also left before the second half could begin. I can only imagine how obvious it was that at least four of the fifteen audience members no longer sat in their seats. However, I do not believe the cast’s nor ushers’ spirits could have been brought down. They were positive, happy people and believed they were doing a superb job, down to the delayed jokes and Puck poking his head out from the backdrop to tell a confused audience that it was in fact intermission.

No, Mysterium’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream did not succeed in interpreting this colorful, Shakespearean play for the audience. In fact, it frightened me. The play is eerie enough with its meshing of two realms and characters with goals difficult to relate to, like vying for an Indian child or fighting a love poison’s strength. Then the hyper players added to its creepiness by trying to make every line sexy and to get through every line quickly. What was so bold was they never deterred from their enthusiasm. We were basically on the stage with them the room was so small and they could probably sense how uncomfortable we all were, or at least they could feel our lethargy, and yet continued on in their zestful fight to end the scene more quickly than the one before. And as an infidel in the audience, I was able to enjoy the play more as someone might have in Shakespeare’s time. I was not a passive, modern-day member who did not a thing to represent my disfavor for what was unfolding before me. I was actively sighing, whispering, and taking down rude, but witty, notes on each element of the poor production. They should be happy I had no tomatoes with me. I was so worked up over their raping this play of any of its worth and value I believe it holds that I was tempted to stop by one of the private rooms to get a first-hand relaxation Reiki experience. But we made the cowardly decision to bolt for the car and leave Puck’s accent and Titania’s drunkenness to torture the faithful and committed remaining souls.